Multimedia Pro Nav Questions

[Bunter]

Hi all

I picked up my i3 today have a couple of questions for others who may have a manual for the Pro Nav system (I don't yet).

Firstly, has anyone has managed to get the multimedia to display videos? I've failed from an iPod Touch (an old one) and directly from video files stored on a USB stick.
Secondly, I thought that the Pro Nav system included a hard drive such that CDs could be added to an on board library. That appears to be a slight errr misconception of mine as there is a total absence of CD player. But there could be an internal HDD; if there is how do you add a music library to it?

 

[i3atl]

Secondly, I thought that the Pro Nav system included a hard drive such that CDs could be added to an on board library. That appears to be a slight errr misconception of mine as there is a total absence of CD player. But there could be an internal HDD; if there is how do you add a music library to it?

You should be able to copy them over from a USB stick.

 

[stumbledotcom]

It's not exactly intuitive. In my '09 E90, which also has the buttons surrounding the controller, you:

• 1-Insert the USB drive in the glovebox port (not armrest one; don't know how many USB ports the i3 has)
  2-Press the Media button to enter that menu
  3-Then press Option button behind the controller
  4-You then see an Import menu item
  5-Scroll to it and press down on the iDrive controller

Note: My pre-BMW Apps system is finicky about the USB drive format. The drives that I've reformatted with my Mac can't be read (even when formatted back to Windows) so the Import menu stays grey. I bought a SanDisk drive specifically for this task and left the format as it was out of the box. It works. The system imports all the songs on the drive into one album. You can rename the album but you can't move songs around. If the song files are tagged (I use iTunes), the artist, album and song name will show up on the screen.

 

[Bunter]

Thanks for the replies. On formatting the memory stick, would you guess FAT32 or NTFS is preferred?

 

[t9sus4]

You can't go wrong with FAT32. I'd steer well clear of NTFS for USB sticks for any purpose, if you want compatibility.

 

[Bunter]

You can't go wrong with FAT32. I'd steer well clear of NTFS for USB sticks for any purpose, if you want compatibility.

OK thank you!

 

[Bunter]

An update on the import function.

After a bit of frustration at the media player not being able to play iTunes ripped music files (m4a and not DRM'd in any way all my library comes from my CDs) I converted to mp3 and managed to import into the system last night. There is no button next to the USB port so it's just a case of inserting the ISB stick then selecting it from the media connection menu. When successfully connected you then need to jog the iDrive wheel right and it brings up a menu containing the import instruction.

There has been some discussion about album art over Bluetooth. I didn't want to start a fresh thread but my observation is that with the Pro Nav system album art works over Bluetooth if I stream from my iPod touch but that it does not work if I stream from my Nexus 4.

 

[kircos]

Tilting selection knob or pressing options button while listening to USB’s music brings up a menu, but nothing about importing? So, I can listen to mp3’s On my USB, but don’t seem to have a way to select import. Album artwork displays off my USB. So everything seems fine, I just can’t import. Any ideas?

 

[saronian]

I inserted a USB flash drive formatted as FAT32, which contained mp3 format files. Then -

Choose Multimedia
External Devices
USB
The firstling/album will show on the display
In the sidebar menu choose 5th icon from the top
Import New Music

All files on the flash drive will be imported.

 

[saronian]

While I can load .mp4 movie files, only the audio plays, not the video.

 

[jadnashuanh]

While I can load .mp4 movie files, only the audio plays, not the video.

In the USA, it's illegal to play movies on the screen visible to the driver while not in park. You can hack the system to enable it. Whether you do or not is up to you. You will get a ticket if a law enforcement person happens to see it, though. You need to recode the car to make that happen. The dealership won't perform that for you, as I said, it is illegal, and they won't be part of it.

A few cars have a fancy screen that lets the front passenger watch a video while it being blocked to the driver (I think it's available in some MB).